"BLUE" JIMMY: JOURNALIST
BLIND DOG OZZY: NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA
"BLUE" JIMMY: November 18, 1978 Guyana, more than 900 members of The People's Temple committed mass suicide by drinking a mixture of fruit drink and cyanide at an attempted utopian community in the jungle of that South American country at the direction of Reverend Jim Jones, their self-appointed leader. Members who refused were murdered. Jones' pseudo-Christian doctrine preached elements of socialism, communal living and racial integration and equality.
BLIND DOG OZZY: NICE!
"BLUE" JIMMY: In 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released a chemical weapon in the Tokyo subway system on the morning of March 20 and killed 13 people and injured thousands more. Their messianic leader, Shoko Asahara, taught his followers a syncretic religion that mixed various Buddhist beliefs with pseudo-Christian fire and brimstone teachings that assured the faithful that they would be the only ones left post-Armageddon.
BLIND DOG OZZY: Praise God!
"BLUE" JIMMY: Between March 22 and 26th 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego, California took their own lives in an orderly fashion wearing identical black sweat pants and Nike sneakers. They believed they had to do this in order to leave their earthly bodily "vehicles" and ascend to a spacecraft that had followed the Hale-Bopp Comet to earth to take them to Heaven.
BLIND DOG OZZY: They watched one too many episodes of Star Trek!
"BLUE" JIMMY: Marshall Applewhite, their leader, was an ardent science fiction fan and revised the group's beliefs and teachings several times, incorporating a confusing stew of various philosophical and religious ideas along with his belief that his bodily vehicle was inhabited by the spirit of Jesus Christ.
BLIND DOG OZZY: Seems like every cult leader wants to be Jesus ... except for the crucifixion part!
"BLUE" JIMMY: Then on Wednesday January 6, 2021, 45th President Of The United States Of America Donald Trump, called together a group of rabid supporters in a "March To Save America" rally in Washington D.C. and urged them to protest the Electoral College vote count which would certify the election of his opponent, Joe Biden, as the 46th President Of The United States. At Trump's urging, thousands of his supporters rioted, stormed the U.S. Capitol building where the Electoral College vote count was being conducted and breached the building. The ensuing violence caused destruction inside the building as well as the deaths of five people and more than a hundred injuries.
BLIND DOG OZZY: The entire World was shocked and America was ashamed.
"BLUE" JIMMY: Throughout his 4-year term, it had always struck me that President Donald Trump had similar traits to a cult leader and his extremist followers were similar to a cult. I thought I had a unique viewpoint about this but then I came across a book written by a mental health counselor named Steven Hassan entitled, "The Cult Of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How The President Uses Mind Control" (2019).
He compares Donald Trump to infamous cult leaders like Jim Jones, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard and Sun Myung Moon, Hassan being himself a former "Moonie"and cult follower.
BLIND DOG OZZY: Nothing beats experience!
"BLUE" JIMMY: His publisher's book blurb says, "Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump's behavior has become both more disturbing and yet increasingly familiar. He relies on phrases like, 'fake news' 'build the wall' and continues to spread the divisive mentality of us-vs.-them. He lies constantly, has no conscience, never admits when he is wrong and projects all of his shortcomings onto others. He has become more authoritarian, more outrageous and yet many of his followers remain blindly devoted."
BLIND DOG OZZY: Believers gonna believe!
"BLUE" JIMMY: On her Cult Research website, cult expert Janja Lalich Ph. D., has a list of characteristics which are typical of a cult. Among them are:
- The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to it's leader.
- Mind altering practices are used in excess and and serve to suppress doubt about the group or its leader(s).
- The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act and feel.
- The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and its members.
- The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality which may cause conflict with the wider society.
- The leader is not accountable to any authorities.
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary.
- The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt to influence and control members.
- Subservience to the leader or group requires the member to cut ties with family and friends and radically alter the personal goals or activities they had before joining the group.
- The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
- The group is preoccupied with making money.
- Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group or group-related activities.
- Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
- The most loyal members (the "true believers") feel there can be no life outside the context of the group.
"BLUE" JIMMY: When Hassan wrote "The Cult Of Trump" in 2019, I thought it was just a polemic written only half-seriously about a controversial political figure. I mean at the time, there was no great disaster connected with President Trump and even though his whole career has been one big scandal, no smoking gun ...
BLIND DOG OZZY: ... until January 6th, 2021!
"BLUE" JIMMY: At its very least, the insurrection on Capitol Hill was called, by members of Trump's own political party, a total screw up on his part and by opposing parties, a punishable act of sedition. I call it The Battle Of Trumpageddon. Either way, it proved that Trump's rhetoric was as lethal as Charles Manson's was in inciting his followers to violence.
Whether you come from the gutter, as Manson did, or whether you're the President Of The United States Of America, all cult leaders are the same. They are all masters of mind control and manipulation which they have cultivated throughout their entire lifetimes and many of them (as Manson and Trump) enjoyed a certain level of celebrity and acceptance before their downfall. Remember, Manson almost became a recording artist and one of his songs was covered by The Beach Boys.
BLIND DOG OZZY: Imagine that tour, The Beach Boys with special guest Charlie And The Family Manson!
"BLUE" JIMMY: Yes, I think Donald Trump was an actual, practicing cult leader and lest anyone think that is too outrageous to consider, recall that most cult members are not from the street but come from well-to-do backgrounds and are well-educated and intelligent. Many give up their lives as professionals to join a cult. As I write this, investigations are ongoing as to the exact level of legal liability Trump had in the insurrection at the nation's capitol. That is not the focus of this article. My focus is on the psychology behind cults, their leaders and their followers. I have been studying and writing about cults for years and goddam ... I know a cult when I see one.
BLIND DOG OZZY: The Battle Of Trumpageddon will live in infamy!
"BLUE" JIMMY: Sake's Alive!
BLIND DOG OZZY: Wow! Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment